If you can’t beat the rules, go around ‘em. That seems to be the idea behind Amazon’s new Web-based Kindle Cloud Reader, a transparent attempt to give iPad readers direct access to both their Kindle books and the Amazon bookstore without cutting Apple a 30-percent slice of the pie.

Amazon is following the Financial Times model with the Kindle Cloud Reader; while its new read.amazon.com site is also compatible with the Chrome and Safari desktop browsers, the site is clearly aimed at iPad Safari users. (An iPhone version isn’t available yet.) When you log into your Amazon account from within the app for the first time, you’re shown your entire library of ebooks—and prompted to add the page to your iPad’s home screen. The Web app claims 50MB of storage space on your iPad, which in turn gives you the ability to store cloud-based books for offline reading.

The Web app comes with a number of downsides; it simply doesn’t offer as alluring a reading experience as the official iPad app. For one thing, there’s no access to periodicals: If you recently started subscribing to newspapers or magazines through Amazon, you’ll need to stick with the iPad app. The same goes for the ability to share book quotes via Facebook and Twitter. And there’s no highlighting or note-taking enabled—though you can see the highlights and notes you’ve made using Amazon’s other Kindle apps (or actual hardware Kindles). Even the page-turning is little bit uglier: Readers merely tap to change screens instead of “swiping” back-and-forth. If anything, the experience is closer to the desktop Kindle app than the iPad app.

The only clear advantage to the Web app, in fact, seems to be the easy access to Amazon’s store. The iPad-optimized store is beautifully designed, with a narrow-but-total focus on Kindle publications instead of the vast grab-bag of products and services available at Amazon.com. Unless or until Amazon can match the elegance of its new iPad-friendly ebook store with its cloud-based reading experience, though, the Web app won’t become a true page-turner.